8475 driving to italy

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[quote=tessa myers;79401]Hope you all had a great Christmas! We are heading down to Abruzzo in February in the car and I would like any advice on a pleasant route from Cherbourg through france to Abruzzo. We don't want to just belt down the motorway. It would be nice to stop off and visit some French towns en route. If anyone knows of a good drive/places to stay please me let me know.. . And happy new year to everyone![/quote]

I do the drive often, and there are advantages to each of the routes. Have you considered the weather at that time of year? The Mont Blanc and Frejus routes will involve you going quite high into the mountains and I've been snowbound on every single route as late as April in different years. The last time we were snowbound it was on the return route via the Gotthard tunnel, which is relatively low lying compared to the other two routes. We have a 4x4 and fit winter tyres and carry snow chains at this time of year. You should also carry a snow shovel. You may not need it, but if you do you'll feel silly if you don't have snow shovel, chains and a winter survival kit.

Last time the snow fell we slept in the car near Basel and woke to find the snow was as high as the bonnet and I needed to dig the car out to continue.

Anyway, weather considerations aside, if you want a scenic route via France, consider Cherbourg, Caen, Le Mans, Tours, Bourges, Clermont Ferand, Saint Etienne, Lyon, Frejus tunnel. It will take about 8-9 hours to get to Lyon this way at which point you may well want to stop. OTOH if you use the autoroute it's still quite a pretty drive but in the same time it takes to get to Lyon you could be in Bardonecchia. If you choose that route, I recommend La Quiete, [url=http://www.hotelaquiete.it/italiano/hotel.html]Hotel Bardonecchia La Quiete[/url] which is clean and comfortable. Bear in mind that you will arrive at the peak of the ski season - expensive hotels and lots of snow and ice.

It pays to be very careful when exiting tunnels, it can be dry at the entrance and snowing/icy at the exit, there's usually no warning. See this video for an example, the incident was at Porto San Giorgio, on the A14 a bit too close to home.

[ame=http://youtube.com/watch?v=HZWE6P9wdgw]YouTube - Multiple crash caused by the snow, Porto San Giorgio[/ame]

lotaresco makes an important point about tunnels. Not only can the weather be completely different at each end of the tunnel (The Mont Blanc tunnel, and also the San Gottardo are spectacular in this respect: needless to say it is usually better weather on the Italian side). But remember also, entering any tunnel can be very dangerous, because although the road ahead of the tunnel maybe only be very cold, but not icy, the 'drips' of water at the tunnel entrance can cause sheet ice to form on the few metres at the entrance of the tunnel. If your car can display the outside air temperature, it is sensible to turn this function on, but you must always be extremely cautious entering or exiting tunnels.

[quote=lotaresco;79415]It pays to be very careful when exiting tunnels, it can be dry at the entrance and snowing/icy at the exit, there's usually no warning. See this video for an example, the incident was at Porto San Giorgio, on the A14 a bit too close to home.[/quote]
A quibble: the title of the clip is "Multiple crash [I]caused by snow[/I]". In fact, the collisions were clearly caused by the idiots who are constantly present on Italian roads, driving far too fast and far too close to the car ahead while they chat on the phone or have animated discussions involving lots of eye-contact with their passengers.

Weather at opposite ends of alpine tunnels can indeed be dramatically different, but the Porto San Giorgio tunnel has to be less than a kilometer from the Adriatic shoreline. I find it difficult to believe that the conditions at the other end of the tunnel were good enough to allow one to drive safely at anything close to the speeds at which the said idiots are seen exiting the tunnel in the video.

As for your original question, Tessa, I have to say that I'd be inclined to just stick to belting along the motorways in February. I've done the drive often enough to know just how tedious that can be, but it seems to me that the middle of winter is really not the best time of year for wandering off into unfamilar territory through quaint villages and pretty towns and along little-used country lanes.

Unless, that is, you get a kick out of putting on and taking off tyre chains, sleeping in a snow-bound car and similar such adventures. :winki:

Allan

Good points made by you all! And i feel a little stupid having not really considered the weather conditions.:reallyembarrassed:I will check out the weather closer to the time and maybe have a fast/safe/motorway route and a scenic route in the event of warmer weather. Then we can decide when we arrive in france. Thanks everyone for bringing me back to reality!

[quote=AllanMason;79422]A quibble: the title of the clip is "Multiple crash [I]caused by snow[/I]". In fact, the collisions were clearly caused by the idiots who are constantly present on Italian roads, driving far too fast and far too close to the car ahead while they chat on the phone or have animated discussions involving lots of eye-contact with their passengers.[/quote]

Oh indeed, and I made that point in a comment on the YouTube page where the video clip is hosted. It's not my clip, it was posted by an Italian, possibly someone working for the autostrada who had access to video footage from CCTV.

Interestingly enough, all the people making an observation that the crash was caused by drivers, not by the snow were subject to a great deal of abuse by one or two Italians who believed that "Inglese" look down their noses at italian drivers.

[quote=tessa myers;79424]Good points made by you all! And i feel a little stupid having not really considered the weather conditions.:reallyembarrassed:I will check out the weather closer to the time and maybe have a fast/safe/motorway route and a scenic route in the event of warmer weather. Then we can decide when we arrive in france. Thanks everyone for bringing me back to reality![/quote]

It's not obvious to a British driver that conditions can be so different further south in Europe, so you shouldn't feel bad about not considering adverse weather. However bear in mind when assessing the route that weather conditions can change quickly at that time of year, and that conditions at Cherbourg (low level, close to the sea), will not be a good indication of weather in the Vosges mountains, Alps, Dolomites or the Auvergne.

There are many mountains between the UK and Italy and some areas are subject to sudden changes of weather. For example on the A4 between Metz and Colmar, even though the route is a motorway it climbs and falls over steep sections which have automatic de-icing equipment. Despite this the motorway is sometimes impassable in winter and it's not possible to tell before you get to that section what the local conditions will be.

Hi Tessa!
This is my first post on this website (which is great reading!) so apologies if I muck it up! I too am looking to drive to Italy (Abruzzo) in late March and all above comments put me in the same mind as you!! If you do happen to motorway it early, let me know how you get on & which route you tried!!!! Good Luck!!!

May i also suggest you arrive in Italy or leave Italy on a Sunday if using the autostrada. Its much quieter with no lorries which like to pull out in front of you with often no signal! Italian drivers can be appalling and the further south you go the worse they are! [I think the sun affects them more and generally the warmer it gets, the more hotheads there are! The favourite pastime is to drive as close as possible to the car in front even at 100mph.As they try to push you away or overtake on the inside even,you may see they have no seatbelts on and three kids standing between the front seats and a Great Dane on the drivers lap using a mobile. Novices to Italian motorways should not be too alarmed by this as its not personal.Stay on the inside lane where you may get lonely but you may arrive safely!

Thank you very much for this very useful advice! I did get a taster last time I hired a car out there but that was very little & no autostrada so I will definately take your advice. Oh well, I always wanted to be in a speedway race! Didn't think it would be like that though!!! Thank you again
Rachelle

For what it's worth, we normally shoot down the autoroute from Calais to Metz -- or, if we have started early enough, to Colmar. In Metz we stay at the Novotel (which is a little bit pricey) while in Colmar we use the extremely reasonable Ibis.
Both towns are really worth a visit, with good restaurants, interesting buildings etc. So is Strasbourg, of course, but the traffic jams around it most days really do put us off. Still, it's a great town to eat in, if you end up staying there.
From Colmar (say) we then drive to Bologna, a fabulous city in which to spend a night, a day or many weeks. After that, we just belt on down to Calabria.
In essence, we spend two nights getting to Calabria from London. You don't have to, and you could do it all in a 24-hour constant drive. But what's the point? France is a beautiful country full of great people, and so is Italy. So it makes sense to take it easy.
As to the roads to use, the autoroutes aren't cheap (though the autostradas are) but they're not ugly like most UK motorways. So, in the interests of speed it is probably worth considering spending the money and using the autoroutes, I think.
The overall point I'd like to make, though, is that while the prospect of driving all the way down into Italy can be a bit daunting, it's really easy peasy once you get going.
rgds
Eddie B

Thank you! I am so pleased I found this site. Just the replies to my one post have been so helpful. I agree on taking your time and enjoying the route and will definately take a copy of your posts with me in case I stay in the areas you suggest. I must admit I don't like to pre book in case I get behind on schedule. I don't mind roughing it if the hotels are booked up so I'm not risking too much I don't think!
Thanks again

[quote=EddieB;80182]..............we normally shoot down the autoroute from Calais to Metz .....................Eddie B[/quote]

If you cut up into Belgium on the autoroute from Calais, you can then go Lille - Namur [bypass] - Luxemburge - Metz by free autoroute all the way - Its only marginally longer, but no stopping for toll booths - AND its cheap petrol in Luxembourg [big services just before you enter France]

From Metz, I'd suggest due south on the free autoroute/dual carriageway past Nancy and Epinal [plenty of hotels] and on over the mountains [not dual carriageway, but well worth the drive for the views] to Mulhouse and onto Switzerland. Cost so far in Tolls - Zero.

Through Switzerland [£20 for annual carnet] - motorway all the way and no tunnel charges and into Italy near Como.

Then autostrada through Italy,

A quick post on a point made earlier: weather changes. Last Friday I left the Thames valley for the Aosta valley. As I headed south across France it was fine to the west but looming clouds towards the Jura and Alps, so I pressed on. No rain (the odd drop) or snow all the way to Chamonix. At the Italian end of the tunnel there were warning signs and I exited to snow - not quite enough to need chains - especially as the Autostrada as far as Aosta is 90% tunnel. A hairy exit ramp reminded me to be even more careful than I was already and I got home to find my parking space in the valley bottom covered in snow - and that didn't happen at all last year.

I suppose it would be nice to wander across France, but I'd certainly take the advice of doing that in the summer. My one-day trip saved me a hotel and meal for the night at the expense of a little bit more petrol for the higher speed and for me that's an important consideration. Tolls, of course, but the autoroutes are so empty at least there's little stress there.

Franco's advice to drive Italian autostrade on a Sunday is incredibly important. In my opinion you can knock three hours off a journey (out of tourist season) because the roads (or at least the slow lane) are basically empty on Sundays.

[quote=Charles Phillips;80191]Franco's advice to drive Italian autostrade on a Sunday is incredibly important. In my opinion you can knock three hours off a journey (out of tourist season) because the roads (or at least the slow lane) are basically empty on Sundays.[/quote]
I agree (generally), but there have been two Sundays in the last few months when we've got caught up in incredibly heavy holiday traffic on the Autostrade. Of course, heavy traffic inevitably means accidents and long periods of sitting in stationary traffic which just makes the whole situation that much more miserable. (On the last drive from Swiss border to Abruzzo, we passed - eventually - three multiple-car smashes.)

I'm pretty sure I've seen a calendar somewhere on the Autostrada site which shows predicted heavy traffic days, but I can't locate it at the moment. However, there is [URL="http://www.anwb.nl/published/anwbcms/content/pagina/nieuws/nieuwsartikelen/verkeer/overzicht-verkeersdrukte-buitenland-p.nl.html"]this page[/URL] on the Dutch automobile club site which has calendars for all the countries which might be of interest to people driving from the UK to Italy.

Al

This is a route I downloaded a couple of years ago, I think from the Sunday Times.
Its a slow way to the French/Italian Riviera, which is good for Genoa and the Tuscany Coast, and I think avoids any major mountain routes.

It may be useful anyway.....

THROUGH FRANCE TO ITALY

THE CLASSIC, eastern route heads via the Rhône valley to Provence, the Côte d’Azur and, if you’ve got the energy, on to the Italian riviera.
DAY ONE, MORNING
Calais to Arras
71 miles, £4.50 in tolls
You’ll leave Calais exactly as do those who take the central route, and with as few tears. Follow signs for the A26, Paris and Reims, hit the open road — and then, instead of bowling past Arras, roll right into the town, from exit 7. Make for “Centre Ville”, then “Les Places”. In the Grand Place you may park either over- or underground.
You may also be awestruck by the fantastic line-up of baroque Flemish frontages both here and on the adjoining Place des Héroes. Like a parade of gigantic flat skittles, they were clearly purpose-designed for prosperous Flemish townsfolk to issue forth from — and contemporary commerce does them no injustice. Arras is immensely proud of them, though less so of its most famous son, Robespierre. Difficult, I suppose, to know how to celebrate the founder of modern totalitarianism.
Stroll, smile, take an apéritif and repair for lunch. Best in town — indeed among the best in northern France — is La Faisanderie, down in the stone-and-brick vaults under the Grand Place (No45, 3 21 48 20 76, shut Mon/Tues lunch, from £20). Jean-Pierre Dargent’s cooking will set standards difficult to match on the rest of your holiday.
But it may be too soon for such extravagance. If so, head for Carpe Diem (8B Rue des Petits-Viéziers), a brick’n’ wood contemporary bistro with a £7.20 lunch menu and splendid beef in beer.
AFTERNOON
Arras to Beaune
318 miles, £23 in tolls
Return to the A26 and stick on it towards Reims, avoiding all exhortations down the A1 to Paris. This is hedge-free arable land, where farmers still plough up bombs and bodies from the great war (much to the farmers’ annoyance, incidentally. Not only do they occasionally get blown up, but also work has to stop and the official palaver holds up work even longer).
Slide past Reims, now heading for Lyons — with, soon on the right, the Montagne de Reims cloaked in some of the champers region’s best-tailored vineyards. If you owned just five acres here, you’d be made. On the horizon shortly comes Troyes, a useful spot to stop in the event that you’ve forgotten something vital in the packing. The town’s collection of cut-price, brand-name factory shops is unmatched in Europe. Though, if you’re a normally constituted male like me, you’re free to keep this information to yourself and roar past with the CD player up loud.

Continue round Dijon (still following Lyons signs) to yet another stretch of world- beating vineyards. Between Dijon and Beaune, the Côte d’Or is the Beverly Hills of Burgundy wine, top plonk domains succeeding one another as in a wine buff’s dream. The vine fields themselves, climbing up the little hills, are so neat that they appear combed into the landscape.
Choice time now. Should you fancy an evening in a quiet, fabulously famous wine village, take exit 1 to Nuits-St-Georges and double back a couple of miles to Vougeot. This is one of those villages where the agricultural reality of wine (wellies, tractors, mud) sits alongside the posher aspect (cut glass, noble tasting rooms, ladies in silk scarves) and both get on famously.
Check into the Hotel-de-Vougeot (18 Rue du Vieux-Château, 3 80 62 01 15, [url=http://www.hotel-vougeot.com]Hotel de Vougeot en Bourgogne[/url] , doubles from £50, May through September), a lovely, sober, stone-built setup. Rooms, big and simply tasteful, are in annexes, one of them parked right in the vines but a grape-pip spit from the Clos-de-Vougeot chateau. No restaurant, but the Clos-de-la- Vouge, just up the little street and across the stream, does the business from £14.30.
If, on the other hand, you need to make (considerably) more of a splash, continue on the motorway a few moments to Beaune and slide into the centre to Le Cep (Rue Maufoux, 3 80 22 35 48, [url=http://www.hotel-cep-beaune.com]→ HOTEL LE CEP - HOTEL LUXE BEAUNE - OFFICIAL WEB SITE - luxury hotel beaune - hotel 4 etoiles le cep[/url] , doubles from £115). This is the sort of sumptuous spot where Louis XIV might stay, if he ever stayed at hotels (and wasn’t dead). And, as well as great historical class reviewed for the modern era, it also boasts one of the best restaurants around; from £32.
You’ll not want to go out, but you should, for Beaune is the wine capital of Burgundy, plump with ancestral wealth built on plonk (quite literally: millions of bottles lie ageing in cellars under the town). Wander the wriggling cobbled streets — a glass or two will help you handle the curves — study the food shops on, say, Rue Monge, and, most of all, the superb Hôtel-Dieu, the hospital for the poor put up in the days when, because they couldn ’t really cure anything, all the money went into the building. It shut in 1971 and is now open for public perusal for £3.90. Full of interest, this is a monument for those who don’t like monuments. If you are not awestruck by multicoloured roofs, the Van der Weyden Last Judgment polyptych or syringes the size of fire extinguishers, I suggest you stay home.
DAY TWO, MORNING
Beaune to Orange
219 miles, £16.50 in tolls
Start by cruising through southern Burgundy before entering Beaujolais and so to Lyons, which can be a devil to get through in summer. If you want to quit our route for the Alps, Turin, Genoa and a quicker trip to the Italian riviera, head off east here for Chambéry.
Otherwise, follow the first signs for Marseilles. These will take you right round Lyons — longer than going through the centre, but less liable to second-city snarl-ups. And now you’re in the Rhône valley — though the river itself is frustratingly out of view most of the time. On the other hand, you have pleasing little hills, increasingly clear light and the red roofs. By Montélimar, home of nougat, most French people would agree that you’re in the real south — though why this should begin with tooth-breaking lumps of oversweet confectionery is anyone’s guess. By Orange, it’s time for lunch. A couple of choices. Either leave the motorway at exit 21 for Orange itself and wend into the centre to Le Parvis (55 Cours Pourtoules, 4 90 34 82 00, from £17). This is a classy and classically Provençal spot. It’s also handy for the huge Roman theatre (£5.40), which you really shouldn’t miss. Alternatively, stay on the A7 towards Marseilles (avoid the branch towards Nîmes) until the next exit, 22, then make for Courthezon and so, 10 minutes from the motorway, into Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Here, amid the deceptive drowsiness of the Rhône’s most famous wine village, La Mère Germaine has been feeding folk of your status (statesmen and so forth) since 1922. La Mère herself has now passed on to the great kitchen in the sky, but the eponymous restaurant remains imbued with her spirit — and wine people still gather on the terrace for loud lunches (3 Rue du Commandant Lemaître, 4 90 83 54 37, [url=http://www.lameregermaine.com]Hôtel restaurant à Châteauneuf du pape en Provence[/url], midday menus from £11.50).
AFTERNOON
Orange to Menton
189 miles, £16.40 in tolls
Back on the road and, when given the chance, abandon Marseilles signs for Nice. Romp across the Provençal plain, past the vast white slab of Mont Ste Victoire, alongside the Maures mountains and tree-clad Esterel hills, to Cannes, for a glimpse of the Med through the flashy sprawl. As you near Nice, pick up signs for Monaco and Italy. These will whisk you round the back of the city, over viaducts, through tunnels and a quickstep of tollbooths and finally up the hill — from where you burst, with delight, onto the coast. My oh my, but this is lovely. Mountains drop directly into the briny, which sparkles away endlessly. The sky is huge, the possibilities infinite. You may be chugging away in a Mondeo but, all of a sudden, you’ll feel touched, if not by grace, then at least by glamour. I guarantee it. Drive on, skirting Monaco, to exit 59, the last turn-off before Italy. Wind down gently into Menton, the civilised person’s Riviera town. Town-centre traffic is a bit of a bind, but once you’ve dumped the car, you’ll not want to find it again. Slotted between sea and mountains, the setting is magnificent. Doing Menton in high style means staying at Les Ambassadeurs, a belle-époque palace due to reopen after wholesale redecoration on May 15 (3 Rue Partouneaux, 4 93 28 75 75, doubles from £236). Those with slightly more modest budgets might take them to the Hotel Riva, right by the sea (600 Promenade du Soleil, 4 92 10 92 10, [url=http://www.rivahotel.com]HOTEL RIVA - hotel menton[/url] , doubles from £68).
Its blockish, modern aspect disguises light and airy class within — and there’s a free stay for one child under 16 sharing the parents’ bedroom.
In the evening, eat in the old town at A Braijade Meridounale, on the tiny Rue Longue (No66, 00 33 4 93 35 65 65, from £18), a winning, cellar-like spot where meat and fish brochettes are cooked on a wood-burning stove. Or try the more intimate Le Boudoir (14 Ave Boyer, 4 93 28 28 09, from £11 for two-course menu of the day, otherwise from £17.50).